Limerick aren’t known to comb for crumbs of comfort but there are stark facts to consider when they meet Tipperary on Saturday.
Twelve games have passed since Tipperary last won the derby in league or championship.
In years, the record extends to seven and you have to go back to 2018 for Tipperary’s previous victory in a league meeting.
Consider that the 2019 Munster SHC round-robin win over a weakened Limerick side was superseded by the subsequent reverse result in a one-sided Munster final and it’s fair to say Tipperary didn’t fell Limerick on their way to either of their last two All-Ireland successes.
Those realities hardly cheapen their achievements but John Kiely’s side remain their itch to scratch.
Of the starting team in last year’s All-Ireland final, nine have yet to be on the right side of a senior league or championship win over Limerick.
Tipperary’s unenviable record against the neighbours pre-dates Liam Cahill but he had his own issues with Limerick as Waterford manager.
His championship record against them read zero from four, the 2021 league win in Walsh Park the only one he enjoyed in the counties’ six NHL and SHC meetings during his three seasons in charge of The Déise.
When Limerick inflicted a fourth win over his side in 2022, he rued his side’s inability to avoid the traffic Limerick have been so good at creating to foil teams.
“When you bring the ball into contact with this Limerick team, they just dominate you and we did that on a couple of vital occasions,” he rued.
Cahill was singing a far more positive tune last March when Tipperary went down fighting in TUS Gaelic Grounds, even though they didn’t score from play for the last 30 minutes.
“We’re not the first over the last seven, eight, nine years, a lot of teams have struggled in the physical stakes with Limerick. But today we moved that ball a little bit better and tried to avoid contact as much as possible and trust our hurling a bit more.”
There remain glaring key performance indicators for Tipperary, however. Sixteen games have now passed since they won a second half against Limerick.
Last year, they went into the break of the league and championship meetings ahead by one and three points respectively only to end up losing the NHL fixture and requiring a Darragh McCarthy free to earn a draw.
First halves against Limerick aren’t the issue – Tipperary have led at half-time in 12 of those 16 outings and been level in one. But in second halves their average deficit is six points.
Reviewing 2025, Tipperary players have recalled the importance of their performance in the championship opener in Thurles.
As was the case at the same venue two years earlier, it required a last-gasp free to come away with something but here they claimed it with four SHC debutants – Robert Doyle, Joe Caesar, Sam O’Farrell and McCarthy. “We have the right players in the dressing room now,” Cahill said afterwards.
He added: “I think anybody who understands the hurling scene in Tipperary understands we’re at least two years away from where we believe we can be.”
But the non-scoring stats belied his modesty. Strikingly, Tipperary took the turnover battle, winning the ball back from Limerick 32 times compared to losing it on 29 occasions.
As attention turns to FBD Semple Stadium, up to last May there had been the matter of Tipperary not having won a home championship game in seven years. The final round win over Waterford broke a run of seven defeats or draws in Thurles.
One unwanted record smashed, there’s the chance to shatter another on Saturday.
